The Legbar Thread!

[enola]

Line breeding is a great thing in my opinion, it shows the good traits and the recessive traits.

 

[ChicKat]

Just an FYI, I have raised literally thousands of chickens over the decades, and now and again, a chick with a few sprigs of feathers on the legs have showed up in pure bred clean legged breeds. It doesn't mean the chick isn't pure bred, it just happens.

I suspect this may be how feather legged chickens got started a couple thousand years ago or however long it was. Someone may have decided to breed together those primitive chickens that had a few sprigs on their legs, and after a few chicken generations, they would have showed more and more sprigs from intense in-breeding until feather legged chickens were established. Then over the next hundreds of years, people crossed those chickens with other breeds until you see all the feather legged breeds we have today.

That's just speculation, but it makes good sense to me.

Thanks LadyCat --

Not only that -- but it isn't quite as simple as I thought above. (isn't that always the way!!) -- I appreciate your speculations and I'm just beginning to dig into this -- I found Classroom in the Coop that gives some really big parameters --

http://www.the-coop.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=99837

Did any of your unusual feather legs from pure bred non-feather legged parents look anything like the photos of my little trouble maker? (above picts in post 7584) It could be a spontaneous mutation in her or something that happened in incubation at the time the leg scales were developing - or.....it could be some recessive that is going to be hard to get out...or it could be something I haven't discovered as of yet.

 

[ChicKat]

Line breeding is a great thing in my opinion, it shows the good traits and the recessive traits.

definitely!!! ;O)

 

[enola]

To me it looks like a couple of misplaced feathers......

But, I know it can't possibly be that simple. And my hope is that all Cream Legbar breeders are as conscientous as you are.

 

[ChicKat]

To me it looks like a couple of misplaced feathers......

But, I know it can't possibly be that simple. And my hope is that all Cream Legbar breeders are as conscientous as you are.

Thanks, -->me too -- because it is up to us - as the breed will hopefully become more wide spread to insure that what we provide others with is genetically a good basis.

 

[stryker]

How about rosecomb feather legged Cream Legbars... I would buy several.

I had three welsummer pullets that had those small leg feathers and during this fall/winter they somehow lost them as they started to lay eggs.. These were spring hatched pullets.

 

[ladycat]

Did any of your unusual feather legs from pure bred non-feather legged parents look anything like the photos of my little trouble maker? (above picts in post 7584)

Keep in mind it only happens maybe once in every few hundred birds.

Yes some of them have looked like that, and some have just had one or two tiny sprigs that are barely noticeable unless you're really examining them.

 

[ChicKat]

How about rosecomb feather legged Cream Legbars... I would buy several.

I had three welsummer pullets that had those small leg feathers and during this fall/winter they somehow lost them as they started to lay eggs.. These were spring hatched pullets.

It could be in the future -- who knows!

Keep in mind it only happens maybe once in every few hundred birds.

Yes some of them have looked like that, and some have just had one or two tiny sprigs that are barely noticeable unless you're really examining them.

O.K. thanks.
That is the thing about recessives - which may partially explain why/how the white recessives came to the USA and why some folks have CLs that weren't blue egg layers...who on earth would want to set their program back a few years....(besides a mono-maniac with a mission)--- to breed out the recessives? For any descendents from this hen - they will have to be tested. And now that I have this knowledge, I will test everything here that I use for breeding -- and that will mean a lot of little chicks resulting from the testing will end up in freezer camp. -- But at least I will know.

With that in mind - if anyone has a male that came from clean legged parents, and has feathers on his shanks - that you would wish to sell -- please PM me -- so I can test all my females from that line (and I guess all the lines and any new birds I would acquire -) for this recessive. These feathered-leg chickens are going to be busy birds in the future.

 

[lauraschicks]

Hi A6chickenhome, It is great that GFF will be working with you. Everyone who has CLs in the US basically traces back to them. Every time I have been in contact with Paul Bradshaw or Jenny - I am impressed by Greenfire farms. One way to insure genetic diversity is to keep good records. Even different people having CLs from GFF could have brothers/sisters -- or maybe more back in the early days. There can only be just so many breeding pairs at any one location. I think that my originals from GFF were not related, because I have had great success from the offspring of that pair. Then I looked around for some that were unlike mine.--for genetic diversity and to work on some of the things that my flock needs improvement in. Here's an example....Both my originals tend to have very upright tails, and the correct tail-angle is 45-degrees from horizontal for the male and even flatter than that for the female....so I saw on Craig's list a pullet with a fairly flat tail and bought her. Together with my rooster her off spring have a lower tail angle....She has traits I don't like -- but thus far - those haven't shown up in the chicks from that pairing (she has a crest that is larger than I like....) To make a long story short--- if they have a different look - there are probably underlying genetics that are causing it. What is funny too is that She tends to have a non-flopped comb -folded comb is allowed in females if it doesn't block their vision - but an advantage from using her is that my males from her have a bit smaller comb. Partly common sense and partly beginners luck. :O) Another source of good quality Cream Legbars is the Cream Legbar Club's members list, right on the website. Lots of "full" members have their contact information there, (associate members - no contact information). Anyone in the CL Club would probably be more than happy to talk about their flock - what are the strong points and what needs work - and what the background of their chickens is and how they maintain diversity. Now--- that being said -- I am beginning to understand that 'line breeding' is an important way to establish your flock - so careful line breeding is of value --(with the inbreeding coefficient in mind-and the related possible egg reduction and lower hatch rate - as I understand it from the above)--- I have a hen I wish I had a dozen just like her, so I bred her to her son -- and these son/grandson cockerels when they are grown could breed her and the resulting chicks should have 7/8 the same genetics as she has...which is about as close as I will get to having more of her most likely. HTH -- more than you ever wanted to hear....;O)

After all of that my big question is what does HTH stand for? My CLs seem to be vigorous and so far I've had a good hatch rate however **DISCLAIMER ** a significant number of the eggs are hybrids since I'm running all of the birds together right now since all of my flock are less than 8-9 months old. I'll split them up in the spring. They aren't mean and they come running when i come see them. So far they've met my goal. I'll have to see what changes occur in the spring.

 

[chicken pickin]

HTH = Hope that helps